


Young Things

by nachttour



Series: The Dad Who Lived [1]
Category: Homestuck, MSPaintAdventures
Genre: AU, Character Study, M/M, gen - Freeform, xeno-relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nachttour/pseuds/nachttour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being an adult is hard, it is hard and no one understands. Particularly when your only child starts polyamorously dating aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Young Things

There was a lot Dad expected of himself upon becoming a single father. Understanding that he would have to give up many freedoms; and that he would be responsible for someone infinitely smaller and cuter than he was had been the knowledge he approached the venture with unhesitatingly. He knew that it meant a myriad of unpleasantness and that he was in way beyond a depth he could ever possibly be comfortable with. His only real experience and credentials were in having been a child, never really a parent or around small children for that matter.

What he was not ready for was the rush of beautiful and horrifying moments culminating in the one that they currently inhabited. Every scrape and fall, hug, hidden report card, late night adventure in the back yard investigating the nocturnal fauna, discussion of where it was that tornadoes put things that they picked up, game of toss, or communal consternation at what the blast ~ath was; were all threads in` a bond that had carved itself into his heart and would never, under any circumstances, be broken.  When he was younger he had imagined that he would live a wild and free life, exploring parts of the world that no one had laid eyes on for years. Instead, with the death of his mother and the upheaval brought by the accident he traded that dream for a different and more humble one. Making sure that John walked surely and completely on the path to adulthood was his goal, and it was a righteous one.

Then the game happened.

The game happened and everything went topsy turvy.

Where he could not have imagined it previously, there was something more frightening than seeing his little boy laying gasping and red on the floor, clutching at his throat and wheezing in an unexpected reaction to peanuts. Watching John rush off into a world suddenly filled with monsters was paralyzing. Shortly thereafter came the necessity of survival -- abandoning his carefully cultivated normalcy and tightening his belt, there were imps to be dealt with and trails to be blazed. Even as John got distracted by internet friends of dubious intent he went forward into the medium and beyond, learning lore and trying to get his little boy an edge up.

Then something went horrifically wrong.

The game glitched. Someone had done something so horrific that they were all consigned to failure and abyss.  

The sky went strange. For a few moments every atom in his body shifted to the left and a weight that he could not explain settled onto his shoulders. Later conversations with consorts and friends would explain that they were now a tangent timeline and that they would all die. Some of them had hope.  John’s long-distance friends worked together at hatching a long-term plan that would change and adjust. The rest of them chose denial; and then there were the aliens to consider.

Aliens that he had never considered before, as his concerns had been terrestrial, regarding baking, and working, and a well-fitting fedora. Instead of any of those things his thoughts were forced skyward to land on a band of adolescent foreigners.  

Gods.

Creators.

Children.

*  *  *

The first contact came unexpectedly. John sitting with his slender, blue-clad shoulders curved into the slightly broader curve of a gray-sweater clad figure. A gray, strange and angular boy with teeth like knives and a wild mess of black hair and two strange, vibrant horns curving up to gentle rounded ends was holding onto his boy like it was the most natural thing in the world, chin jutted over John’s shoulder as he animatedly explained something about level design.

The two of them stopped at his entrance, watching him with cat-round eyes, until John broke into his goofy, open grin. “Dad, I want you to meet Karkat. He’s one of my friends that is helping us with the game.”

Adjusting his pipe to the corner of his mouth, Dad quelled any feelings other than gentle politeness and nodded back. “A pleasure, Karkat.You may call me Mr. Egbert or I also answer to Dad.”

The slow, curious expression on the alien’s face was hard not to laugh at, as he stared at Dad like he was the most offensive and crudely put together puzzle that had ever been presented to him. Turning abruptly back to John, he ignored him as if the greeting had passed right over his head. “John, your lusus is talking to me.”

John grinned openly at him, shaking his head around a giggle. “That’s not a lusus Karkat, that’s my dad.”

*  *  *

Dad found slowly that trolls were very different, yet in some ways very similar to humans. The similarities bred misunderstandings just as often as the differences do.

Dad learned that the species as a whole is functionally polyamorous when John casually mentioned that a ‘moirail’ would be coming to visit them at some point in the future. The answer gave him that fact and others as John explained what in the stars and heavens surrounding them that is exactly quadrants were. He found that he really was not up to explaining to his young teen what exactly polyamory was, but the subject did not end up needing much discussion. John took to the strange fluctuations and rules of the trolls’ social circles with ease. Karkat was in their house at the medium frequently, his long-fingered hands intently jabbing at his ‘husktop’ as he kept in communication with unseen teammates. Well-beyond when a young person should have given up, rested, and handed over responsibility to friends and family, the strange gray troll maintained his work. Hunched over with a perpetual scowl and ever-deepening rings under his eyes he oversaw a very solemn duty that he felt strongly disinclined to discuss. Dad’s first few gentle suggestions that he rest were met with open hostility followed by amusement. They arrived at a truce wherein Karkat took up residence in a corner piled up with pillows, towels, and some of the cushions off the couch. Thereafter Dad left him alone about sleeping; unsure of what exactly sopor slime is, positive that he cannot reproduce nor find it. The pillow-pile would have to suffice.

* * *

The first hint that Dad was afforded about the fact that his son will navigate xenobiologically dubious emotional territories with ease came upon his return from the alchemiter, arms full of a bag of flour to find John and Karkat tangled into a snarl of limbs and mouths on the sofa. It did not appear to be an involved kiss, more a mashing of mouths and teeth and kind of awkward nuzzle all rolled into one movement. They made quite a pair, flushing scarlet and glaring balefully at him, perhaps a bit challengingly, daring him to disapprove or say something. Instead of being frightened, or disappointed, or anything else in that moment Dad just smiled and gave the boys a cordial nod. Offering no more commentary he quietly slid back into the kitchen to compose his thoughts and strategize on how to feel given this development.

As a gentleman and a man of adventure (in his head at least) he respected their willingness to do something different. As a parent he felt a bit strange about the fact that his goofy baby boy, prone to sometimes wearing his shoes on the wrong feet out of sheer absent-mindedness had progressed to wanting to get handsy with alien boys. It wasn't the boy part that bothered him. In this day and age the youth were welcome to whatever suited them. The only hangup that he suffered came from the wicked points of Karkat’s incisors and the pinprick of blood on John’s mouth, smeared unnoticed onto his chin. That and the fact that his child was just thirteen years old, entirely too young to be kissing anyone.

Then there was the question of safety. John was welcome to love whomever he liked, but could they get one-another sick? How will it all work? Head spinning with questions Dad set himself to softening some butter. The door creaked open and John entered tentatively, shoulders squared back and face a pleasant shade of rose. “Dad.” His voice cracked and Dad had to hide a smile by stirring his butter and sugar mix more aggressively. “Dad we need to talk, okay?”

Quietly setting his whisk aside Dad went about measuring out flour unhurriedly. “Say your what you need to, John. You know I’m always interested in what you have to say.”

John drew in a shaking breath behind him and Dad fought the urge to turn around and ruffle his hair. With or without his consent, John was beginning to be an adult, and adults deserved their own space.

“As you could figure out from uhm... well, what you just walked in on.. ah... Karkat and I... “

Quietly pouring another cup of flour into the mix, Dad let him find the words. It was not a matter of wanting John to be embarrassed or struggle; instead he wanted to give his child the respect to formulate his own opinions and statements. Silencing his own thoughts of response and hearing what his son had to say was a particular practice that required patience. Specifically when it came to kissing strange gray boys. Maybe the kiss had been a surprise, or perhaps a dare. Dad had learned over the years that it was safest to let John do the talking and figure out the rest afterward.

“Karkat and I like one another.” Lame finish. Completely like John, and Dad used the opportunity to turn around and smile at him.

“I surmised as much from your passionate embrace. Is this an inquisitive like or a for-sure like?”

John twiddled with the edge of a piece of paper on the counter, spinning it round and round. “I dunno yet. I just know that he’s... cute. In an angry kind of way.” The thought is halting and quiet as it leaves him, but a smile is curving up the edge of his mouth. “He’s really sharp and he yells a lot and he’s really stressed all the time. But... I like to be close to him. Are you going to disown me for kissing aliens?”

The earnest expression on his face prompted a bark of laughter. Taking his hat off to lay it behind him, Dad shook his head. “John. You’re a young man now. You kiss who you wish. Just be gentle to your heart and his. And... go carefully. You’re very different people from very different cultures. You are also very young. I want you to focus on your friendship and your quest first. Beyond that? You are becoming an adult and I don't always get to decide what is best. I can trust you to decide that.”

John’s face lit up from within. “I didn’t think you’d take it so well. Hell, I didn’t think I would take it so well. But it’s really natural y’know? In a really unnatural way. His skin feels funny and his teeth are really sharp. And...I kind always thought I would kiss girl first. Weird, huh?”

Turning back to his pastry, Dad declined to answer because the answer was complicated and did not serve anyone. Finding John and his subsequent rearing had not left much time for romance. “As long as it makes you happy and you two keep in mind that you are both young and life is yet full of adventure, I’m fine with it.” As an afterthought, after cracking a couple of eggs into a bowl and carefully separating the shells he looks back at John. “Send Karkat in here, will you?”

Grinning at him as if he’s asked for the moon and stars on a plate, John breezed back out.

A quiet clicking on the tile announced Karkat’s arrival. Today his young guest was barefoot, his toe-claws making resonant contact with the flooring. The troll pulled up a stool and folded his arms in front of his chest like a wall, leaning forward on his sweater-sheathed elbows.

“John said you wished to communicate with me, lusus-egbert-human. State your business.”

“At this point, Karkat, I would prefer Monty. Mr. Egbert is fine. Or Dad.”

Wrinkling his nose and worrying at the edge of one of his sweater-sleeves with delicate yellow claws, Karkat shook his head. “Dad is weird, I don't address people by their titles. You are also both secondly named Egbert making this 'family' doubly confounding. You are John’s lusus. So that will be your title. John’s-lusus-Monty. Your preferences are irrelevant. John did not properly tame you. Perhaps because you are so large in comparison. Though the kid is such a hopeless imbecile that it does not surprise me-”

By this point Dad knows that if one does not interrupt Karkat mid-tirade one will not get a word in edgewise. “However you would like to address me Karkat, is fine. I just need to speak to you about John.”

The troll gives him a measuring look quietly reaching out to take one of the glasses off the counter, running a nail along the inside of the glass. The scraping sound causes Dad to feel profoundly creepy and a weird place in his back tenses up, but he abides.

“I just want you to know that I do not mind if you are close to my son. It's okay. Just try to treat each other nicely.”

Karkat stared back as if his translating organism has completely failed and Dad is speaking in clicks and screams. Slowly, he puts the marked-up glass back down, staring up at him as if he might charge. “Right. My moirail is coming tomorrow.”

Dad knows that this only can become more of an adventure. Setting the oven to a different temperature he starts baking a new cake. There will be more people to entertain, after all.

* * *

The seven-foot boy draped over Dad's couch is a bit of a conundrum. The horns only add to his rather disturbing height and hook into very serious points at the ends. When Dad imagined someone likely to be close to Karkat he envisioned someone high strung, similarly petite, and full of rage. Instead, the languid, quiet boy who was reminiscent of the stoners from his college days had taken up residence in the living room, studying the ceiling as if it contained the secrets to the universe.

Coming in and quietly offering a plate of cookies over, Gamzee settled the plate onto his chest, honking merrily. Taking a seat on the edge of the sofa Dad was content to let him have it. “Gamzee, right?”

“That is my name, lusus-sort-of-fellow-of-John's. What can I be doing you for?”

Carefully scooting so that he would not be sitting on Gamzee's legs, Dad looked down the line of him to met his strangely purple-tinted eyes. “I was just curious about you, and about trolls. Karkat doesn't really like to talk to me. I think I confuse him. Would you be willing to explain some things for me?”

Observing him through half-lidded eyes Gamzee revealed a grin full of razors. “Of course my brother, I would. I will be straightening out your thinkpan into nice neat lines of thoughts. Keep getting your comfortable sit on, while I bring some light into the dark space 'tween your ears. I learned that word from John.”

* * *

Many things happen in five years, and it blurred into a whirlwind in Dad's mind. Time is distorted in the medium and very much so in the void. In what seemed to be in a blink of an eye, John had put on two feet. Karkat and Gamzee were also rapidly ascending, and very quickly Gamzee began to have issues standing inside of the house. In his free time, Dad redesigned some of the doorways and structures to allow John's friends to come and visit with more ease. A few small issues persisted, but only so much interior decorating could be done.

Other planets waited quietly in the dazzling galaxy around the house, and the beautiful gate overhead was a point of entry into fantasy itself. John, without fear or thought ran to it and into the fray not once looking back. Karkat stayed a while and then vanished, only to reappear at intermittent intervals.

Having nothing better to do with himself other than compulsively bake, Dad braved the medium as well, testing his might against imps,golems, and horrors alike. There may have been a sense of frenetic rush, if their session was healthy, but no such concern existed. Knowledge of the glitch lent languor and calm to his explorations of the beautiful of the fantastic and foreign world. While there was no endgame, there was also no time limit bearing down on them.

 

* * *

Quest beds were a nightmare-fueling subject of unending horror. Finding John on his was something that Dad gratefully missed. The return of his child, now almost as tall as him though not quite as broad, and in the stupidest blue pajamas that Dad had ever seen, supplanted all others to be the best moment of his life.

Descending down to him in a swirl of air, hat billowing out behind him, John's first question was, “cool, huh?” It was in fact cool. Cooler than anything that Dad had ever been able to accomplish, between being an accountant and a salesperson. His sense of pride for John was immense. Looking into John's face he could say with confidence, “I think at this point you might be a man.” Handing over his wallet-sylladex Dad felt his trepidation melt away. John had been tested by the world, and the world was what had been found wanting.

* * *

Gamzee, was ant-like in his love of sugar and a loomingly helpful presence in the kitchen. Content to sit, stir, measure, and assist in the various baking. He also brought insight into what trolls were, along with reasons for some of their stranger behaviors. Some of Dad admittedly went and crosschecked this with Karkat at times when his levels of ambient stress did not create a physical barrier.

Upon his return to the kitchen, Gamzee glanced up at him quietly, horns flirting dangerously with the top of the ceiling. “I 'spect that I oughta warn you. Karkat's kismesis might be all up and coming here. Things 'tween them are complicated-like.” Letting his statement have the gravity it deserved, the wild-haired troll kept his steady stirring eventually blowing at his bangs in a futile attempt to clear his eyes and figure how much to say. “Just be like, laying down as many laws as you need to to keep your hive safe. They fight. That's how kismesis up and act. They fight.”

Tilting his head and adjusting his hat so he could properly observe Gamzee, Dad asked the next logical question. “Why is it that they fight? In our culture...that kind of feeling tends to lead to bloodshed, generally not kissing. Those relationships break down under the strain of their own violence.” From a helpful guide that one of the elsewhere trolls (Terezi was the name that stuck out) had drawn up, Dad was now the proud owner of knowledge of kismessitude. Not that that knowledge contributed usefully to his understanding thereof.

Gamzee stared into the batter, trying to divine answers from the mishmash of crystalline-structures and lipids. Worrying his lip with his frightening teeth before answering he eventually arrived at what he needed to say. “'s a troll thing. You need to be all up and knowing that someone isn't just all soft and gentle-like toward ya. That they also afford you the respect of fearin' you. Cuz a motherfucker ain't right if they ain't scary. The drones come for the weak.” Tempering the words with a smile, Gamzee nodded to Dad. “'s what that's about. My understanding of things runs that humans don't fuss with that noise. You just hug.”

Amused at the note of condescension that the word 'hug' took on, Dad let his mirth inform his tone. “When things are going right, yes. Some people do need a kismesis. Not all of us are gentle-tempered, but I would hazard to state that most of us are. Were.” The fact that the entire human race now consisted of eight people was not one that Dad allowed himself to dwell on. If the kids could find a way, there was something to be done about it. Beyond that, his entire world had narrowed itself down to his child and his continued safety and survival. Either way, neither option required extra consideration.

“So tell me a bit about Karkat's hatefriend?”

Honking and stealing a lick from one of the mixing arms, Gamzee began carefully pouring cupcake mix into a pan. “Motherfucker's smart. Really smart. Glowy. Kinda angry. He and KK are very similar. 's how they fight so good I think.” Wiping away the excess, and thumbing a bit from the corner of his mouth Gamzee glanced over at Dad through the corner of his eye. “They both get to be hatin' on themselves quite a lot. They match.” Sliding the cupcakes into the oven, Gamzee closed the door with a very officious click.

* * *

The hole in the ceiling was an issue that needed to be addressed quickly. Pipe crooked into the corner of his mouth, Dad stared down the lineup of aliens and his child sitting in his living room. Karkat and Sollux had been separated to opposite sides of the group, Gamzee tucked against Karkat's side with a long arm draped over his shoulders with John stationed next to Sollux who simmered and rubbed at a temple.

“Gods. Children. Dreamers. My adopted family all. You are able to create universes. You are able to do things with your minds that is the stuff of fantasy. Some of you are horned and from the stars. All of that I see and accept.” Jutting a finger up toward the stars glittering through the hole in his house, Dad continued. “When you are in my home? You will be respectful. You will not blow up my ceiling, throw people through walls, bite each other open, or break my couch in half.”

“'s a rethonable ethpectathion.” Sollux worried at his temple as if by sheer will he would push the pain out of his skull. Dad has always been curious about Sollux, and his empty eyes. Apparently he was 'dead', though death seemed to be a subjective state within the context of the game.

“I feel that it is also. Thank you Sollux. I know that collateral damage can sometimes be hard to avoid in your …. disputes.”

Karkat was watching this archly from his corner of the sofa, smothered under Gamzee's arm. Turning to him, Dad continues. “Don't aggravate him to the point that he needs to shoot you with eye lasers.”

Sputtering a bit, Karkat stared back. “He aggravates himself to the point of eye-lasers. I don't really have to do anything. He's fussy and angry and overly emotive.”

“Thoundth an awful lot like you're thpeaking about yourthelf. I would be doing the univertheth a kindness by ridding it of your pathetic carcath.”

“Sollux.” It was not often that Dad brought out the parental tone; but it was amusing to see that John's spine still straightened up at its arrival. “I know that you two really hate one-another in a way that is something to write poetry about, but please be calm in my house. You can fight out in the mediums or on LOWAS if you like.”

“Yeth thir.”

“Karkat, can I get some agreement?”

“I don't make promises about things that I don't know for certai-”

“Karkat.”

“What?! I mean it, Dad-lusus, there is no real control over how Sollux aggravates me.” Gamzee leaned over, pressing his lips into the space between Karkat's horns. “Shooooosh.”

Karkat stopped short, completely derailed, blinking and staring up toward his eyebrows and where Gamzee was settled. “You shooshing me?”

Murmuring against Karkat's hair, Gamzee nodded, his vicious horns pointed out toward Dad. “Best believe it son, and if you keep runnin' that mouth? I will pap you. I will pap you in ways your tensed-up mind got no conception of.”

The sight of them together lightened the mood considerably. For a race that boasted violence as a solution, the youth seemed to clump together aggressively, bonding and running around more like a gang than a unit of soldiers. Perhaps those bonds were what constituted family in Alternian society. The troll homeworld had never been a pleasant conversational topic and Dad reasonably avoided it.

“Right. Well. Since we have agreed to maintain the structural integrity of the house? How about cake?”

The collective groan of the couch made him grin.

* * *

As is wont to happen with young people with feelings and emotions the first fight shook the house. Literally at the foundations.

John and Karkat fell deeply into the 'fix the session' effort. and Dad had not seen anything indicating that a major upset was on the way. Sollux visited only occasionally. It kept the house, Gamzee, and Dad safe from the collateral damage resulting in their fights.

The evening dawned clear, Prospit and Derse hanging heavy on the horizons and the house rocking and shaking. Along with the blue pajama update, John had also gained control of air. Judging from the disturbing bowing of the windowpanes, John also lost control of air when under stress.

Braving the stairs and nudging a few low-level imps out of the way with his foot, Dad knocked on John's door. Barely able to hear himself over the howling of wind he reasoned that John probably had not heard the knock. Opening the door revealed his angry teenager furiously scrubbing at his face with his arm, and tapping agitatedly on his computer with his unoccupied hand. Glasses shoved halfway up his face, John's expression was screwed up in an odd mixture of anger and grief, eyes brimmed in red.

Carefully adjusting his fedora so that it would not sail away in the gale, Dad entered and settled himself down on the end of the bed, careful not to appear to be reading over John's shoulder. In small fits and starts the wind died away, marked-up posters settling back against the wall, old tape just barely securing them. John sniffed angrily, clearing his throat and presumably a load of snot out of his nose, not wanting to appear emotional. Adjusting his watch and fiddling with a few other things Dad allowed John space to put himself back together.

“Want to talk about it?”

John stiffened in his periphery. “No. Not right now.”

“Will you help me ice the cake I'm sending over to the lab for Gamzee?”

“Yeah. I can do that.”

* * *

As Dad figured it might, the story came out in small pieces as they went about the business of carefully layering many finely-cut layers of cake with a variety of strangely flavored butter-cream frosting.

There was another troll with whom John and Karkat both had frequent contact with. Someone that Karkat had shared history with. Someone that John liked a lot, and whom his friends-group also admired.

Between careful floral flourishes and other odd decorations, the story continued.

She and Karkat had sorta-dated a while before. This was originally not threatening; but Karkat was 'vacillating'.

John crushed a couple of flowers and looked as if he might punch through the counter-top. Dad carefully removed the flowers and smoothed the under-coating over, waiting for John to continue icing or speaking. Happily, John chose the later rather than the former.

Karkat voiced doubts about whether or not it would work, whether or not their 'flushed association' was right. Stated that he did not want to feel quadrant panic the way he was, that John could not possibly understand.

John had yelled, causing Karkat to yell louder and the whole thing had turned into an online clusterfuck with Gamzee and Terezi on a board and Karkat's future self coming in to weigh in; and in the mix of all of that John logged out and shut his computer off and sorta kinda blew off half the roof.

Dad finished the rest of the accents on the cake and put it into a larger pastry cooler that he had alchemized. Unfortunately there were no easy answers to offer John. Affection was a hard subject that involved many moving parts and pieces. The fact that John had come to care for another person in the midst of great stress and toil made sense; but it was equally as likely that the relationship would have failed under its own weight.

Leaning against the refrigerator, Dad him and admitted defeat. “I don't have an easy answer for you. Things are really different with the trolls. They are entirely outside of our genome and my frame of reference. I just know that Karkat is a complicated person who has a lot of responsibility; both that he has undertaken and that he has been given. Give him space. Let him sort out how he feels. It may not go so favorably for you... but that's kind of what being an adult is, being able to accept unpleasantness with grace. Sometimes it means you let people out of your life when it is time for them to go. You're so grown up already, so just keep being the amazing man that you have come to be. The rest will sort itself out.” Dad reached across the counter to quietly squeeze John's shoulder.

Not happy, but obviously considering what he had been told, John quietly left the kitchen to head back up to his room.

Dad settled on his elbows and considered the things that he had not said out loud, like the fact that they were the only humans left, if this relationship did not work it was unlikely that John would have one. As the years passed, Dad's private stock of hope was beginning to wane. Not for one second did he doubt the earnestness of the kids, but the reality of the situation was proving a powerful deterrent. Without a solution they would be trapped in this space until something happened to launch them back into the main timeline. Given what the seers knew about beta time-lines, it was not a good eventuality. All of the battling and frog-shenanigans would do no good. Privately Dad hoped that John and Karkat could find a way to patch things up, to come back to one another. Time was too short, and they all deserved whatever sort of happiness could be eked out of their ponderous situation.

* * *

The troll that Dad did not expect to miss was Gamzee, with his spanning curved horns and weird syntax and slouchy strangely-patterned pants. Other than Ms. Lalonde whom he frequently corresponded with via computer, there were not many people in the medium that he interacted with on a regular basis. It had been pleasant to speak with someone else who enjoyed baking and the aesthetic of clowns, and who was more inclined to laugh than to scream.

Losing a quadrant previously had not seemed to be a big deal. The big deal was the change, accompanying the loss. The rest of the community went with the individual. No Karkat meant no Gamzee, and no Sollux. John kept up with his adventures, stayed busy, and slowly the hurt and anger melted away into focus. It did Dad's heart glad.

* * *

Finding Gamzee on the porch was a portent. Sitting with his feet hooked over the edge of the wood, watching the stars, Dad came out and placed his fedora carefully between the tall boy's horns. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Peering up through his lashes, Gamzee flashed him a razorblade-smile. “Missed you. KK missed John something fierce, he jus' won't say nothing to that effect. Thanks for the cake.” Patting the fedora awkwardly so it settled more snugly between his horns, the purple-troll sat in an effigy of patience.

Arching over the railing, taller than Gamzee for the only time in his life, Dad could not contain his curiosity. “Will we be expecting a visit from Mr. Vantas then?”

Gamzee pulled the brim of the hat down to shade his eyes, shaking his head a bit in time to music that no one else could hear. “Can't say as I am any sort of seer of light or events, but I know my rage-brother. 's a man of routine. John's familiar. Never know what the future might be up and offering for us.”

Dad assumed that was something close to a yes.

* * *

Finding them sitting as a quartet on the couch told Dad that it would be okay. Gamzee settled onto the floor, head leaned back and arms sprawled out along the edge of the cushions, tucked under a couple of pairs of legs. Sollux had folded his long limbs into a comfortable knot on one end and was busily tapping on a keyboard, eyes fixed vacantly forward, one of Karkat's legs tucked under him. The red-eyed troll in question occupied the other end of the couch with John bridging the gap between the pair of them, stretched out long and with his legs tucked into Sollux's lap and serving as a husktop table. Resting with his head pillowed in Karkat's lap, they were engaged in a quiet but serious discussion about what sounded like old bad movies.

Catching John's eye Dad offered up the silent question of whether or not it was okay. John's wink back told him enough that further conversation was not necessary at the time. Heading into the kitchen, Dad set the oven to preheat, silently directing a little swarm of imps to gather supplies for him. This was nothing like the life he had imagined for himself as a child, and certainly nothing like the life that he imagined for John while raising him.

Still, his house was filled with laughter, and the intermittent sound of friendly bickering. When John smiled there was a tranquility there that Dad had never seen on his face as a child, and confidence in his stance and body language born of power and competence. The strange gray gods occupying the couch and the floor of the living room were not the in-laws that Dad would have chosen for John, but it it was not often that one got to choose their family. Maybe it would all work out. Maybe they would all be able to create a new and more perfect universe together. Just as possible was the eventuality that it would all fall apart. Still, looking at the nubby-horned troll Dad was reminded of a story that John shared with him one.

Karkat had introduced himself as John's god. A gracious god that had created the world just for him. The quiet look on his face as he poked John on the nose with a sharp-clawed forefinger whispered the truth of his boast. They would probably fight. They would definitely have disagreements. There would be moments of conflict and misunderstanding.

Dad had said it already though, all of the trolls in the living room, and their clades as well were a part of his family. They were welcome and they would be taken care of. As two handfuls of lost souls from two extinct cultures they would create something new or die trying.

It would be an adventure.


End file.
